Trip Report: Air Canada E175 LGA-YYZ (with photos)

I recently took a trip to Montreal to visit a friend at McGill University. When I was booking my trip on aircanada.com, I had the option of connecting through Toronto for the same price as a nonstop, so I opted to take the connecting flight. This gave me the opportunity to fly not only a new Air Canada E-Jet, but also a 767-200 on a 55 minute flight from Toronto to Montreal.

January 4th, 2007
Air Canada 711
LGA-YYZ
Embraer 175 (C-FEIQ)
Seat 23F (window)

scheduled (and actual) departure: 12:30PM
scheduled arrival: 2:05PM
actual arrival: 1:55PM

I arrived at LGA about two hours before my flight and was faced with nothing in terms of lines. I had already checked in online, so I just dropped my bag at the AC desk and sat at a window watching various airport movements for about an hour.

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I went to security about 20 minutes before boarding and didn't encounter much in the way of a wait there. Unfortunately, the TSA confiscated the small knife in my SwissCard. I hadn't realized that knives with blades under three inches were no longer allowed (this was the first time any security has cared about my SwissCard). I explained that to the TSA agent and he retorted with "knives have never been allowed!". I thought that was a bit harsh - also a bit wrong. I just moved on and sat at the windowless gate area until boarding.

There were about 50 passengers on board this flight, so most people, including me, had two seats to themselves. We queued behind two aircraft for departure and then took to the skies from runway 31 at 12:41.

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Immediate right turn over Riker's Island after departure from runway 31

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Heading north, with the Whitestone bridge visible

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Heading north over the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Hudson River

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Flying over the southern tip of Cayuga Lake (one of the Finger Lakes of upstate NY) and Ithaca, NY, home to Cornell University.

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A closer look at Ithaca and Cornell University. I never imagined seeing my dorm from FL 320.

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Each and every seat on Air Canada's fleet of E-Jets is equipped with a widescreen, touch-controlled, AVOD (Audio/Video on Demand) system, with 80 hours of video and 50 hours of audio (I think). Some of the featured movies on my flight are still out in theaters. I found that pretty impressive. When I took this photo, I was watching a documentary about a Canadian film maker's documentation of China's increasingly industrialized society. (Note: the headphone jacks are two-pronged. AC provides decent headphones for free.)

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Descending towards Toronto

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Downtown Toronto

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A closer look

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Lining up for landing, with an Air Transat A310 (perhaps an A300?) in the distance on approach to a parallel runway

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Final approach

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Pulling into the gate at Terminal 2. Within the next couple of weeks, most arriving flights will use the soon-to-be-opened Pier F of Terminal 1.

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C-GDSU, the 767-200 that would take me to Montreal

That's all of the photos of this trip. My YYZ-YUL flight mostly occurred during darkness, as did my YUL-LGA flight (operated by an E190).

One more note: the legroom on the E-Jets is great (about 34'' i think).

Hope you enjoyed this report. Comments and questions are welcome.

Quote:

I just moved on and sat at the windowless gate area until boarding.

Probably the better choice. You wouldn't want to be in a full cavity seach while your flight takes off, would you. :shock: :lol:

Nice shots though. :)

Matt, enjoyable report, I am sure I am not the only reader who is impressed you took the connection via YYZ instead of the non-stop, great move.

Regards

LGA777

Quote:

this was the first time any security has cared about my SwissCard).

Not the first time they cared, prob was the first time they noticed it. I always forget that in my brief case I have a bottle of contact solution, apparently the screeners "forget" (i.e. miss) it all the time.

Interesting report, I like Air Canada, I'm not a fan of the boarding process, and how many times do they need to see your id, its a bit much IMO. AC's E jets are really nice though, on long trips they really are nicer then the most widebodies believe it not.

Great report and photos. Thanks for inaugurating the Trip Reports section. :) (The other trip reports in here were written long before we had a separate section for them.)

Great report! Thanks for posting a pic of those widescreens, I'm very impressed with them.

Re: Trip Report: Air Canada E175 LGA-YYZ (with photos)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Msh744

I recently took a trip to Montreal to visit a friend at McGill University.

McGill once. McGill Twice!! Since you were there in the week after New Years, I trust that you spent plenty of time at SnoAP...